US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the United States was monitoring what he described as a rise in human rights abuses in India by some officials, in a rare direct rebuke by Washington of the Asian nation’s rights record.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe regularly engage with our Indian partners on these shared values (of human rights) and to that end, we are monitoring some recent concerning developments in India including a rise in human rights abuses by some government, police and prison officials,\u201d Blinken said on Monday in a joint press briefing with US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin, Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar and India’s Defence Minister Rajnath Singh.<\/p>\n
Blinken did not elaborate. Singh and Jaishankar, who spoke after Blinken at the briefing, did not comment on the human rights issue.<\/p>\n
Blinken’s remarks came days after US Representative Ilhan Omar questioned the alleged reluctance of the US government to criticise Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government on human rights.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat does Modi need to do to India’s Muslim population before we will stop considering them a partner in peace?\u201d Omar, who belongs to President Joe Biden’s Democratic Party, said last week.<\/p>\n
Modi’s critics say his Hindu nationalist ruling party has fostered religious polarisation since coming to power in 2014.<\/p>\n
Since Modi came to power, right-wing Hindu groups have launched attacks on minorities claiming they are trying to prevent religious conversions.<\/p>\n
Several Indian states have passed or are considering anti-conversion laws that challenge the constitutionally protected right to freedom of belief.<\/p>\n
In 2019, the government passed a citizenship law that critics said undermined India’s secular constitution by excluding Muslim migrants from neighbouring countries.<\/p>\n
The law was meant to grant Indian nationality to Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Jains, Parsis, and Sikhs who fled Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan before 2015.<\/p>\n
In the same year, soon after his 2019 re-election win, Modi’s government revoked the special status of occupied Kashmir in a bid to fully integrate the Muslim-majority region with the rest of the country.<\/p>\n
To keep a lid on protests, the administration detained many Kashmir political leaders and sent many more paramilitary police and soldiers to the Himalayan region also claimed by Pakistan.<\/p>\n
Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) recently banned wearing the hijab in classrooms in Karnataka state. Hardline Hindu groups later demanded such restrictions in more Indian states.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the United States was monitoring what he described as a rise in human rights abuses in India by some officials, in a rare direct rebuke by Washington of the Asian nation’s rights record. \u201cWe regularly engage with our Indian partners on these shared values (of human rights) and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":254544,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1785,195,5857,5856],"class_list":{"0":"post-254537","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-antony-blinken","9":"tag-india","10":"tag-rights-abuses","11":"tag-us-secretary"},"yoast_head":"\n